Volume – 26 Number – 3 September to November 2019 Edition Puffing Billy Railway celebrated an exciting milestone on Wednesday 31 July 2019 when volunteer Belinda McKenzie became the first female train driver in the railway’s 119 year history. She drove the 10:30 am and 2:30 pm trains from Belgrave Station, supported by an all female crew, including fireman, guard and conductors. Belinda, a qualified Patent Attorney, is currently Manager Train Operations Branch. Her responsibilities include: supervision of daily train operations; preparation and distribution of operational documentation; arrangement and authorisation of all train movements for passenger, ballast maintenance and charter. Belinda recalls that in 2010, on a visit to Puffing Billy as a passenger, she was spotted by the crew checking out the running gear of one of the locomotives. They invited her into the cab and chatted about the volunteer rolls available. Belinda signed up that day and since has held roles including: trainee driver; engine cleaner; guard, signalman, steam and diesel firemen, trolley driver and fire patroller. 1 OFFICE BEARERS President: Daniel Cronin Secretary: David Patrick Treasurer: Geoff Crow Membership Officer: David Patrick Electrical Engineer: Phil Green Way & Works Engineer: Ben Smith Mechanical Engineer: Geoff Crow Development Engineer: Peter Riggall Club Rooms: Old Parcels Office Auburn Railway Station Victoria Road Auburn Telephone: 0419 414 309 Friday evenings Web Address: www.mmrs.org.au Web Master: Mark Johnson Callboard Production: John Ford Meetings: Friday evenings at 7:30 pm Committee Meetings 2nd Tuesday of the month (Refer to our website for our calendar of events) Index Page: 3 AGM Meeting Notice Page: 4 What’s Happening Page: 5 Technical Article: Bryansford Scenery Work Update Page: 8 Feature Article: Victorian Narrow Gauge & Puffing Billy Page: 22 Calendars for September 2019 to November 2019 You can promote your interests in our Callboard Newsletter. Choose a topic and tell a story. Base a feature article on the history of your models, era or country. Develop a technical article around a skill or activity. Your interests may be well suited to our knowledge sharing nights. See previous Callboards for presentation styles. The Newsletter is distributed quarterly, in the last week of November, February, May and August. Please arrange for your document to be proofread prior to sending to [email protected]. Please endeavour to forward contributions 4 weeks prior to distribution. 2 THE 54th ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE MELBOURNE MODEL RAILWAY SOCIETY INC WILL BE HELD AT 8.00 PM ON FRIDAY OCTOBER 18th 2019 AT THE MMRS CLUB ROOMS VICTORIA STREET, HAWTHORN (at the Auburn railway station) Business: A. To confirm the minutes of the 2018 Annual General Meeting. B. To receive and adopt the reports of the Committee of Management and the statements of account for the 2018/2019 year. C. To deal with any recommendations of the outgoing committee. D. To elect the following executive officer and ordinary committee members: Secretary Two ordinary committee members. E. To deal with any motions submitted by members. F. Open forum to discuss any issues raised by members. Any motions from members must be submitted to the Secretary no later than 20 September 2019. Nominations for election of the positions in D above must be in writing, signed by the nominated member, a nominator and seconder, and submitted to the Secretary no later than 11 October 2019. Nominations must be on the printed form available at the club rooms, or from the Secretary (0419 414 309 on meeting nights) or by mail. David Patrick Secretary. (Please bring a plate of goodies for supper). 3 WHAT’S HAPPENING FROM THE SECRETARY Membership Philip Miller was advanced to Full membership in June. Please join me in congratulating Philip on this milestone in his membership! Following Jadyn Katz’ admission as a Junior member, name badges were presented to him and his mother Michelle by president Dan Cronin on 19/7/19. As you can see, they were all very pleased! Michelle and Jadyn Katz with president Dan Cronin after the presentation of their membership badges. Photo – John Ford John Gardner Former member John Gardner (member number 212, who joined on 8/10/1971) kindly donated his collection of trains and some collectibles to the club recently. Dan Cronin, Geoff Crow and Peter Riggall collected several boxes of mainly Victorian, but some NSW, South Australian and American trains from his house and we are now sorting through the items to determine their condition. Programme for September to November The programme for the next three months includes Green Diesels in September, Named Australian Passenger Trains in October and the Modern Era in November. If you have locos or rolling stock which fit these categories, please bring them along to make the nights a success. AGM The 2019 Annual General Meeting will be held on Friday 18th October in our club rooms. The preliminary notice is included in this Callboard. Please note the cut off dates for any motions which you might like to submit to the meeting, and for nominations for the Committee. No business may be conducted which is not set out in the notice paper convening the meeting which will be issued two weeks prior to the meeting. Hope to see you all at the club each Friday! David Patrick, Secretary 4 TECHNICAL ARTICLE BRYANSFORD SCENERY WORK UPDATE (SEPTEMBER) Here is an update on what has been done since the last Callboard. The control panel at Bryansford has been moved forward to allow more room behind the station. Thanks to Darren for doing this work. The tunnel cover foam has been shaped and will get the first layer of grass on it at the September work night. Future actions are: spread the ground cover next to the station area; place the ground cover around the tunnel; finish off the Bank Box Loop area; and construct new cattle yards. There is still a lot to do. The next work night will be on Friday 20 September. Hope to see you all there. Feel free to come and have a chat with me any time. I am at the Club rooms most Friday nights. Here are a few Photographs of work in progress. The new control panel location with foam ready to be shaped to suit. 5 The new station building and platform with new area behind it. Image of tunnel cover before the static grass is applied to the area. 6 Images of what the finished scenery might look like with a rural panoramic photograph background. The foreground trees were arranged by Geoff Crow. 7 FEATURE ARTICLE VICTORIAN NARROW GAUGE & PUFFING BILLY RAILWAY The major expansion of Victoria’s 5 feet 3 inch gauge railway system occurred during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Between 1887 and 1892, no less than 1162 miles of track were added to the state’s network, linking Melbourne with all of the major centres of population. During the ensuing five years however, only a further 208 miles of railway were built, the financial depression of the 1890s being the principal factor influencing the slowdown. At the same time, the Government of the day realised that the cost of providing communications to many outlying communities by means of railways was excessive for the relatively small population served. Since the only alternatives at that time were riverboats or drays drawn by bullocks or horses, it was necessary to seek a means to overcome this problem. A Parliamentary Standing Committee was set up to inquire into the possibility of providing communications services by means of narrow gauge railways or tramways. These could be laid as surface lines with few facilities and could follow the natural contours of the land, with consequent savings on earthworks and civil engineering construction. The findings of the Committee were brought down in the Victorian Parliament. Despite the misgivings of the Victorian Railways Commissioner, John Mathieson, construction was immediately started on three of the proposed lines and thus yet another gauge was added to those already established in the Australian railway scene. As to why Victoria should adopt 2 feet 6 inches as the gauge for its new lines on the advice of Mr. E. R. Calthrop, Locomotive Superintendent of the Great India Peninsula Railway, rather than build to either the South Australian narrow gauge of 3 feet 6 inches or the Queensland 2 feet gauge, we can only guess. NA No. 1 Moe 1913. The first narrow gauge railway to be built in Victoria was certainly the easiest. Laid as a surface tramway on nearly level ground, with few earthworks or bridges, the line extended southward from Wangaratta, through the farming area of the King River Valley to Whitfield, 8 This was a distance of 30.5 miles. Opened throughout for traffic in 1899, this line was soon followed by routes from Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook, a distance of 18.2 miles, and from Colac 29.6 miles to Beech Forest, opened in 1900 and 1902 respectively. The Gembrook line was to become Puffing Billy in later years. Of totally different character from the Wangaratta-Whitfield line, both called for sharp curves and severe gradients to overcome difficult terrain, and in each case, a new route into mountainous country was opened to both passengers and goods. Later, to complete the building of Victoria’s 2 feet 6 inch gauge system, three more lines were constructed: a horse tramway only 3.2 miles long between Welshpool and Port Welshpool in South Gippsland, opened in 1905; another steep and winding line commencing at Moe in Gippsland and extending 26 miles into the mountains above the Latrobe Valley to the gold mining town of Walhalla, opened in 1910 and finally, later in 1910, a branchline extension of the Beech Forest railway a further 14.1 miles to Crowes in the Otway Ranges, again a line abounding in curves and gradients.